BAY AREA LABOR-ECONOMIC DIGITAL DIRECTORY

This guide is intended as a resource for social science researchers interested in the San Francisco Bay Area. It provides a review of data sources, useful internet sites, and other resources available both at UC Berkeley and in the broader community. The focus is on Bay Area specific resources. However, most sources of information are not organized on a regional scale. For instance, most government data sources are collected either at a local level (city or county), or at a state or federal level, rather than by region. Similarly, much private sector information is organized by industry sector or by company, rather than by region. Therefore, much of the information presented here is not specific to the San Francisco Bay Area. However, where possible we have tried to highlight the most useful sources for regional analysis.

• Bay Area County Data Tables (selected economic data)
  
• Bay Area Research Reports on the Web -- These are reports that summarize data and trends on a Bay Area wide basis, and provide a useful starting point for understanding the Bay Area economy and changing labor markets in the region.
  
• Primary Data Sources on the Web -- These sites are the source of primary data on the Bay Area's population, demographics, employment, economic structure, etc. This is the best place to start for obtaining and analyzing government information.
  
• Company or Industry Based Information Sites -- These are useful sites for researching particular companies or industries. Many of the sites allow searches based on location, so it is possible to identify companies in particular Bay Area cities or counties.
  
• Other Primary Data Sources at UC Berkeley -- This section provides a review of other primary data sources that are available at UC Berkeley but are not currently available on the web.
  
• Bay Area Local Government Links -- This provides links to Bay Area cities, counties, schools boards, special districts, and other governmental agencies.
  
• Bay Area Labor and Community Links -- These links provide directories of labor and community organizations in the Bay Area.
  
• Bay Area Research Institutes -- These are other research institutes located in the Bay Area that do research on some aspect of the regional economy.
  
• Other Useful Bay Area Links -- These are a variety of other useful Bay Area links, such as to the region's newspapers, and guides to entertainment, cultural and other leisure resources.

Obviously the quantity of resources available on the web is increasing at an exponential rate, while the quality of resources is increasing as well, though at a somewhat slower pace. We greatly appreciate any and all feedback, both on the usefulness of resources listed here, as well as on useful resources and sites we may have missed.

The resources listed in this section are reports that summarize economic trends in the San Francisco Bay Area. They provide a general overview of the regional economy, emerging growth centers and employment trends.

The San Francisco Bay Area: Emergence of a New Economy
Published in September 1995 by PG&E, this report provides an overview of the Bay Area economy, major emerging industry clusters, demographic trends, and the rise of information technologies in Silicon Valley

California Economic Strategy Panel Study of the Bay Area Economy
This report, commissioned by a state-wide strategic planning body, highlights major trends in the Bay Area economy. The study includes up to 1995, and highlights job growth and decline, wage trends, sectoral employment, and employment concentration. It also provides a more detailed analysis of the environmental technologies and multi-media industries in the Bay Area.

Joint Venture Silicon Valley's Index of Silicon Valley
This annual research report highlights key indicators of economic change and change in quality of life. It tends towards issues of concern to the high-tech industries in the area and lacks many key social and demographic indicators, but is a useful source of information nonetheless.

UCLA-Anderson Business Forecast
This is a set of slides and charts from December 1996, summarizing key indicators and forecasts of the California Economy.

The following links are all sources of primary data about the Bay Area, including labor market information, economy & business, demographics, housing, and information on government agencies. This section is the core of this research guide, and provides links to most of the major sources of government and private sector data on the Bay Area.

Association of Bay Area Governments Data Center
This is the best place to start for data on the Bay Area. Data that is available from this site includes:

• Population and Demographic Characteristics , with current and historical demographic characteristics, and summaries available for the entire 9-county area, by city, or by county.
  
• Jobs, output and trade data , including a broad Bay Area Economic Indicator, and data on employment, unemployment and the sectoral composition of the workforce.
  
• Real estate and housing data , including the sales price of new Bay Area homes, and building permit data.
  
• Bay Area Retail Activity which also includes trends in consumer prices and the Bay Area Consumer Price Index.

The LMID is the primary source of government data on industry and occupational employment. They also provide some information on wages in particular occupations. The data is compiled from the Current Population Survey, payroll data filed with the EDD, and time-series models. There is historical data, as well as the most recently available data on unemployment, and employment by industry and occupation, as well as projections of future employment. The web site also makes available certain demographic data from the 1990 census in a useful form. The data is well organized, and is available by the entire state, by County or by Metropolitan Statistical Area. They do not have summary tables of the entire 9-county Bay Area. There is some written analysis of the data, in addition to the original numbers. The LMID also coordinates the California Cooperative Occupational Information System, a partnership of state and local agencies that produces local occupational and labor market information, and provides projections of occupational outlook in the future.

• Population of the county and largest cities;
  
• Educational enrollment and spending;
  
• Labor force and employment by industry;
  
• Income and sales;
  
• Imports and exports by customs districts;
  
• Housing stock and residential/nonresidential construction;
  
• Manufacturing industry/Timber production;
  
• Agricultural data, such as number of farms, agricultural employment, and value of production;
  
• Vehicle registration and miles of streets, roads, and highways; and
• County tax collections and expenditures

The California Statistical Abstract , a compilation of DOF data on social, economic and physical aspects of the State, is now published in its entirety on-line. This provides detailed tables, comparing counties through-out California, in areas such as:

• Area, Geography and Climate
  
• Population
  
• Labor Force and Employment
  
• Gross State Product, Income and Cost-of-Living
  
• Health and Welfare
  
• Education
  
• Resource Industries
  
• Manufacturing
  
• Construction
  
• Transportation & Public Utilities
  
• Trade and Services
  
• Banking and Finance
  
• Public Finance
  
• Law Enforcement
  
• Elections
  
• Comparative Fiscal and Economic Data for the States

The Demographic Research Unit of the DOF is the official source of demographic information for State wide planning. The data on this page is limited, but they do provide copies of their quarterly demographic newsletter, which summarizes recent demographic changes, and they provide guidelines to other data sources.

California Economic Indicators is a bi-monthly summary of economic trends and data relating to the State of California.

California Economic Diversification and Revitalization
CEDAR, California Economic Diversification and Revitalization, is an Internet information project of the California State Library and its California Research Bureau; the Trade and Commerce Agency, with funding from the Economic Development Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce. It provides a useful collection of links related to California's economy, labor markets, and various service providers. Their collection of links and information on the California economy is a useful collections of government data sources, though not exclusively on the San Francisco Bay Area.

Regional Economic Information Service
The REIS is a data base housed at the University of Virginia that provides local area economic data for states, counties, and metropolitan areas for 1969-1994. Statistics in the data base include: personal income and earning variables, full and part employment variables, transfer payments variables, and farm income and expenses variables. The REIS data base is produced by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Resources for Economists on the Internet
This is the most detailed directory of economic data on the Internet available. It includes everything from detailed database sources, to on-line journals and upcoming conferences. Many of the data sources can be searched by County, or by State, and thus can be used for studies of the Bay Area economy.

Government Statistics on the Web
This is a comprehensive guide put together by the University of Michigan to government statistics on the web in a wide range of categories, including: Agriculture; Business and Industry; Comprehensive Subjects; Cost-of-Living; Demographics; Economics; Education; Energy; Finance; Foreign Government Data Sources; Foreign/International Economics; Foreign Trade; Government Finances; Health; Housing; Labor; Military; Politics; Science; Sociology; Transportation; Weather.

Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
The Federal Reserve Bank publishes monthly summaries of economic developments in the entire Western Region. It provides a useful summary of the context of economic developments in the region, though it is not very useful for detailed information on the Bay Area.

The following is a collection of web sites that are useful for researching particular companies or particular industries in the Bay Area.

EDGAR Database of Corporate Information
EDGAR, the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system, performs automated collection, validation, indexing, acceptance, and forwarding of submissions by companies and others who are required by law to file forms with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). It is an extremely useful source of information on company financial data, with detailed descriptions of primary products and basic company analysis.

Companies On-line
This is a directory of 75,000 public and private companies with web sites. It was developed by Dun & Bradstreet in cooperation with Lycos web search engine. It is useful for providing immediate links to company web pages.

Corporate Watch
This is a particularly useful site for information on the global impact of multi-national corporations. They also have a very useful guide for researching corporations.

Silicon Investor
This is a useful site for financial information on high tech companies, including detailed stock information.

American Electronics Association
This is the nation's largest high-tech association, representing the software, electronics and information technology industries. They publish periodic research reports, and have extensive links to their members web pages. The Northern California Directory is the quickest way to get company profiles of high-tech companies in the Bay Area. It provides links to all companies with home pages on the net.

Hi-Tech Trade Associations, Societies, Standards Groups, and Consortia
This is a useful listing of professional and industry associations in high-tech industries. It's a useful way for getting information on particularly companies, finding out about trade shows, or researching particular occupational groupings.

California Tourism Research
This site includes a break-down by county of expenditures, payroll, employment and taxes generated from the tourism industry.

California Travel Impacts
From Dean Runyan Associates, this includes tax revenue, employment and spending from the tourism industry. It includes a break down by county of travel impacts.

The California Association of Realtors
CAR publishes research and data on housing and real estate trends by County. They conduct detailed research on real estate, and economic conditions affecting the housing and construction markets.

This is a listing of resources that are available at UC Berkeley that are useful for researching the Bay Area economy.

A.  Library Guides to Information

Internet Resources in Business & Economics
This is one of a series of research guides produced by the Thomas J. Long Business & Economics Library. It is a particularly comprehensive guide to business and economics information sources on the web. This is a great place to start for general research on the economy, with a number of useful links.

The California Economy
This is one of a series of research guides produced by the Thomas J. Long Business & Economics Library. It is primarily a listing of published material on California, including data sources (e.g. County Business Patterns, California Economic Indicators from state Department of Finance), as well as regular reports and analyses (e.g. Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy, Economic Report of the Governor). It is useful as a general resource and a good place to start, though it is somewhat dated (August 17, 1995) and doesn't provide many references to on-line resources or electronic data sources.

Sources of Information About U.S. Companies
This is one of a series of research guides produced by the Thomas J. Long Business & Economics Library. It is a comprehensive guide on how to research U.S. companies and how to obtain company-specific information. It is a comprehensive list, though somewhat overwhelming due to the quantity of sources listed. Specific California or Bay Area listings include:

California Manufacturers Register Database Publishing. Annual Product, geographical and alphabetical list of California manufacturers. Express Reference, T12.3.C2 D52

California Services Register Database Publishing. Annual Industry, geographical and alphabetical list of California service companies. Express Reference, T12.3.C2 C3

Sources of Business and Economic Forecasts
This is one of a series of research guides produced by the Thomas J. Long Business & Economics Library. This guide provides listings of published reports from various governmental, academic and private organizations. Specific California or Bay Area Projections include:

California Country Projections Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy. Annual. Provides projections by county for key market variables including population and household growth, personal and household income, and taxable sales. See the related publication California Population Characteristics (IGS Library A8495) which projects major demographic trends such as changes in ethnic makeup, age distribution, and household characteristics. Latest in Reference HD 107 .C2 C375

California Economic Growth Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy. Annual. Discusses outlook for national economy, provides detailed analysis of California's economic base, projections of jobs, population, households, income and spending, reviews construction trends, and analyzes major economic regions in the state. Data elements include: taxable sales, construction activity, household income. Latest in Reference, HC 107 .C2 C25

Projections 94: Forecasts for the San Francisco Bay Area to the Year 2010 Association of Bay Area Governments. Annual. Projects growth and distribution of population, households, employment, income, jobs, and labor force characteristics for the Bay Area. Data are presented at both county and city levels. Data elements include: jobs by industry, constraints to growth, mean household income. Reference, HD 5726 .S4 P72

California Planning
Planning Resource on the Internet: California Planning is a selected list of approximately 70 Web links to California city & regional planning information, including government data sources, associations and planning schools.

Business & Economics Library also carries many of them. Some of the information contained in these CD-Rom is also becoming available on-line, and where appropriate I have included the links as well.

American Business Disc
This is a comprehensive directory of both public and private companies through-out the U.S. Information on each company includes Name, Address, Phone Number Number of Employees, Primary Business Activity (by SIC code), and Total Sales. It provides a comprehensive listing of companies in the Bay Area (for example, it lists 54,751 companies in San Francisco County, 62,126 companies in Santa Clara County and 54,804 companies in Alameda County) but the specific data on each company is somewhat limited. It is also somewhat difficult to transfer to disk for personal use, since it only allows the transfer of 75 listings at a time. Nonetheless, it is useful for finding companies within any particular industry or region. The database is searchable by SIC Code, by geography (City, State, County, Zip Code), by employment size, by sales, and by company name.

American Housing Survey
Current housing data are available from the American Housing Survey (AHS), a survey conducted by the Bureau of the Census for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The American Housing Survey (AHS) collects data on the Nation's housing, including apartments, single-family homes, mobile homes, vacant housing units, household characteristics, income, housing and neighborhood quality, housing costs, equipment and fuels, size of housing unit, and recent movers. National data is collected every other year, and data for each of 47 selected Metropolitan Areas is collected about every four years, with an average of 12 Metropolitan Areas included each year. The national sample covers on average 55,000 homes. Each metropolitan areas sample covers 2,500 or more homes. The survey is conducted by the Bureau of the Census for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In addition to being an important source of statistics on current housing characteristics, recurrent or one-time supplements provide data on related topics such as transportation and energy conservation. Also, the survey is a comprehensive source of information on the demographic characteristics of the household occupants.

Comprehensive Housing Affordability Survey
A statistical CD-ROM, published by the Census Bureau for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. It contains data from the 1990 Census on the availability of housing at the state, county, and place level. One particularly useful feature is that it is designed so that you can check the number of houses for sale or apartments for rent at a given percentage of the median income of a place.

County and City Data Book
A statistical CD-ROM containing data about every region, state, county, city with a population of 25,000 or more, or place with a population of 2,500 or more. Depending on the geographic level this may include information on population, health, income, crime, housing, industry, etc.

County Business Patterns 1986
CBP provides data on the total number of establishments, mid-March employment, first quarter and annual payroll, and the number of establishments with one or more paid employees. Data are tabulated by detailed kinds of business based Standard Industrial Cassification (SIC) designations. The datasets contain data broken down by State and County, as well as U.S. Summary data. Data are provided for most of the economic divisions of the economy including agricultural services, mining, construction, manufacturing, transportation, public utilities, wholesale trade, retail trade, finance, insurance, real estate, and services. Data are not included for agriculture production, railroad, government, or household employment. County Business Patterns for recent years are also available directly at the U.S. Census Web Page.

Current Population Survey
The Current Population Survey, a monthly household survey conducted by the Bureau of the Census for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, provides a comprehensive body of information on the employment and unemployment experience of the Nation's population, classified by age, sex, race, and a variety of other characteristics. It is generally not very useful for local area analysis, though it's widely used for national trends.

Economic Censuses, 1977, 1982, 1987, 1992
A statistical CD-ROM containing data from the many economic censuses the Commerce Department conducts every five years. This disc reports on the Censuses of Wholesale Trade, Retail Trade, Service Industries, Manufacture, etc. for the last Economic Census.

Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) file
Data on occupations and educational attainment by race and sex for U.S. counties and states.

Public Use Microdata Samples (PUMS) 5% Sample
Public Use Microdata Samples (PUMS) contain records representing 5% or 1% samples of the housing units in the U.S. and the persons in them. Detailed information on income, race, ethnicity, class of worker, educational attainment, industry, etc.

REIS: Regional Economic Information System
REIS is a mixed CD-ROM containing information about personal income in different parts of the United States. The information is available for states, counties, and metropolitan areas. REIS includes such information as Per Capita Income (PCI), Total Personal Income (TPI), earnings by industry, etc.

Security Exchange Commission 10K Annual Reports CD
This CD includes extensive financial information on public companies who are required to file with the Security Exchange Commission. It includes data on stock ownership, as well as sales, profits, assets, etc. of major companies. The database is searchable by SIC code, by geography (State, area code, Zip Code), by Company Name, etc. The number of companies included, however, is somewhat limited. (e.g. only 276 in the 408 area code, 263 in the 415 area code and only 131 in the 510 area code.) Nonetheless, it is extremely useful for researching major public companies in the area.

U.S. Census
There are multiple census disks. The most useful is STF (Statistical Tape File) 3A which covers SF Bay Area Only.

USA County Statistics (LAN)
A statistical CD-ROM, containing data about all the counties in the United States, collected mostly by various federal agencies. Most of the information comes from two books, the State and Metropolitan Area Data Book, and the County and City Data Book.

UC Data
This is the principal source of computerized social science and health statistics information. Their holdings (http://ucdata.berkeley.edu/holdings.html) are extensive and include everything from detailed government data sets to periodic private sector surveys. Data is primarily available to the UC community-Faculty, staff and students-but can be made available for outside researchers as well. They also maintain several on-going projects (http://ucdata.berkeley.edu/projects.html) which has some useful reports including longitudinal studies of welfare and poverty in California, and a collection of demographic statistics on California's Latino population. They are building an on-line CD-Rom data set (http://ucdata.berkeley.edu/cdrom.infosys.html) which currently includes some 250 CD-Roms of published Federal statistics.

ABAG Local Government Links
This site provides links to all Bay Area cities, counties, regional agencies & special districts, libraries, school districts, and colleges & universities.

• San Francisco Chronicle
  
• San Francisco Examiner
  
• San Jose Mercury News: Mercury Center
  
• Santa Rosa Press Democrat
  

• San Francisco Business Times
  
• San Jose Business Journal
  
  

• Bodega Bay Navigator
  
• Bolinas Coastal Post (Monthly)
  
• Los Altos Tow